Sunday, December 26, 2010

Boyfriend of missing architect: we hoped to be together forever

Comment: The words a boyfriend should now be saying and not before....

The boyfriend of a young landscape architect who vanished nearly a week ago has spoken of their plans for the future and his hopes that they would be together forever.

Greg Reardon with his girlfriend Joanna Yeates Photo: SWNS

7:30AM GMT 23 Dec 2010

Greg Reardon made an emotional appeal for the safe return of Joanna Yeates, 25, his girlfriend of two years.

He said: “I desperately want her back. I thought we would be together forever.”

Police said they were “completely baffled” by the disappearance of Miss Yeates, known as Jo to her friends, who was last seen leaving the Ram pub in the centre of Bristol at 8pm on Friday after a Christmas drink with colleagues.

Mr Reardon, 27, also an architect, reported his girlfriend missing when he returned to the one bedroom flat they shared in the affluent Clifton area of the city on Sunday night, after visiting his family in Sheffield.

Yesterday, a tearful Mr Reardon recalled the couple’s shared passion for surfing as he made his appeal at the home in Ampfield, Hants, of Miss Yeates’s parents, David, 63, an IT worker, and his wife, Theresa, 58, a Waitrose supermarket cashier.

He said of Miss Yeates: “She was my future. She was the first ever girlfriend I moved in with and we had just celebrated our two year anniversary.
"Recently we moved in to a really nice flat together in Bristol in probably the best area of the city.
"It's our second place together and things felt like they were really falling into place.
"We were both really happy in our jobs, we worked together and that's how we met.
"This Christmas was going to be our first together. I was going to stay with her family, which is always a big deal for a boyfriend, for about a week, and then head up to Scotland for New Year's Eve for Hogmanay.”
He added: "We were at that stage where we had been going out for a couple of years, we had moved in together, and everything was really positive.
"She was really looking forward to Christmas, we had put up a tree and she was due to bake some mince pies.”
Mr Reardon realized his girlfriend was missing when he returned on Sunday night and found their cat, Bernard, “going mad” on its own.
“I went through her bag, which she had left on the table, and found it had all the stuff she would need to take with her, things like her purse and her keys.”
Mr Reardon said he was “constantly” on the internet, trying to raise awareness.
CCTV images show Miss Yeates visiting Waitrose and Tesco supermarkets in Clifton as she walked home. The cream coat she is pictured wearing was found at the flat along with a Tesco receipt.
Det Supt Mark Saunders, who is in charge of the investigation, said: “It is completely baffling. She is a professional person. This is completely out of character.”